Paranormal State The Personal Showdown
by Mrs.President
Summary: "Do you believe in the Demonic?" "I believe we make our own demons." Kaylie Niccals, a long lost friend of Ryan Buell, finds herself in desperate need for the help of PRS, and Ryan struggles with personal feelings, past fears, and embracing the unknowing
1. Preface

No matter how hard I tried, I could not stop my hands from trembling, or ignore my left arm that was burning in sever pain while wrapped in layers of bandages. My heart was still hammering painfully inside my rib cage, my lungs were burning from the short terrified breathes I could only manage. My bravery and solid mental strength had finally snapped.

"Does it hurt, Kaylie? Can you hear me?"

Blackness surrounded me all though my eyes remained open, like the reality of my own being was gone. I was trying to find peace in my mind, my world again; trying to re-obtain my grip before I completely lost it. My mind was exhausted but my muscles were wired with adrenaline. For the life of me, I could not see anything out side of my mind.

"Kaylie, are you okay?"

Constant disturbances kept shattering the guard I was trying to recreate to block everything else out. I needed sleep, just a few hours of dreamless sleep.

"Kaylie?"

I needed to get the acid-like terror out of my veins and away from my system, to make it nonexistent to my brain, to block it out.

"Why isn't she responding?" Came another shaky female voice from somewhere out in the blackness.

"S-she's probably in shock." Another voice replied, this time male.

I felt the tension, the fear in the next person to speak, "She was just attacked! Of course she's in shock!" The person's voice lined with franticness and unable to believe.

"Kaylie, can you hear me? Kaylie, I need you to breath normal, all right? Just take a deep breath?"

Their words held no meaning at that moment, it could have been just useless noise to my ears. The bodies that the voices belonged too were blurry so much to the point they were just blotchy colors. Suddenly, I began to see it again. Goosebumps ran across my skin tightly, and my airway constricted; limiting my all ready labored breaths. It's form, somewhat the shape of a man, was blacker than the black around me, and somehow I knew it had come back solely for me. The slow, agonizing steps shock the ground I had fallen on, and the closer it got the more freezing the air would become. My breath was beginning to crystallize in front of me. Out of no where, a spot light shone down, and revealed in gruesome detail it's goat-like head, causing me to inhale to scream. _God save me. It reached out to touch me face, which made the scream erupt completely from my throat and I violently hit whatever it was away from me. _

"_No! No! Stay away from me!" My lungs exhaled and inhaled almost painful gasps of air, as I began sobbing beyond my control. _

_A pair of warm hands grabbed my face, my eyes adjusted to reality like I had fallen out of some sort of vortex. My eyes were looking directly into Nate's, then I looked around and seen I was in the back of an ambulance, not some desolate place I had felt only moments ago. The rest of my team was standing by the open door, all looking completely shaken. All of which telling me it was true, I had just been severely attacked. _


	2. Chapter 1 Regression

**Two Week Later.**

The cross made of a jade colored marble. That's what I was given on my fifteenth birthday from my mother; eleven days before cancer claimed her life. It felt smooth and cold against my fingers, the meaning behind it seemed faltered, it seemed.. meaningless now. My entire life, I had been raised Catholic; I had been raised to love God, and all my brothers and sisters. I had no problem with it, it was an easy task for me.

My finger clenched around the empty cross, "Where were you when I was attack?" I vocalized, tears welling up. The response of silence I received was enough of an answer for me, it was also enough to knock me down onto my knees and cry out; the anger causing me to throw the marble 'toy' across my room. It punctured the sheet rock, and then it fell to the ground. A chunk had broken off, and slide across the floor. I paid no mind as the pain of abandonment overwhelmed my mind and body. "Just like my real father, you weren't there to protect me!" I shouted out loud, not really sure who I was shouting at anymore. All that time I had spent praying, all that time I believed faith was what I needed to keep my protected from the very forces I was trying to avoid.

Slowly, my knees were pulled up against my chest as the tears burned my cheeks. The place in my heart that had been full of faith, was now empty and cold, just like a marble, lifeless statue. A new linger emotion entwined my heart like a vein, and it was a vein of resentment, anger, and hate.

~~Over the next couple of days, Nate watched over his little sister, unsure of really what to expect from her emotionally, or mentally. Things he was able to pick up on was the illness that started to fever her. It seemed out of nowhere, and whenever he would pass her motionless body on the couch, his eyes would automatically scan the bandage on her right arm.

"Kaylie, will you let me look at it?" He asked, making his voice soft as if he didn't want to disturb her sleep.

"No." She groaned back tiredly.

"Can I just make sure its not infected?"

"It's not."

"Have you at least checked it?"

"…no."

"Kaylie, just-"

"I said 'no' okay?" She snapped, fully awake from her nap, gathering her pillow and blanket, then going back upstairs into her room.

Frustrated, Nate sat back in the recliner. Fourteen days of observing Kaylie's sudden opposite behavior. She refused to speak out any involving that night, and anything involving the unexplainable activity they were not having to deal with in their home, which was totally uncharacteristic of her. If a moment presented itself for paranormal investigation, Kaylie would be right on it, ready to get down to the bottom of it before the sun rise.

He seen her reflection in the darkened TV, just standing in the doorway of the living room; as if she were waiting to say something. Nate waited for her to break the silence, but the sunken stance was starting to creep him out just a little bit.

"Hey, Kaylie if you're-" His voice died out when he turned around to find the space empty.

His breath had caught in his throat, and his heart literally skipped a beat. Whipping around, his eyes went right back to the TV but the shadowed figured was no gone, but he didn't feel alone. Investigating with Kaylie had taught him not to run with fear, but to embrace it; to make curiosity a fuel more recognized. Her bravery was something he admired about her, and her determination to find answers for their clients. Though, investigating the paranormal was something he thought he'd be doing after dropping out of college, the only thing that kept him there was so he could watch over, and protect Kaylie. His fingers ran threw his hair, but how was he supposed to protect her from some other realm? Protecting her from something he couldn't see, seemed so impossible and it drove him absolutely crazy.

After a few moment, Nate went to check on his sister; finding her sound asleep in her bed. Sleeping was what she had been doing lately since the rest of the investigation team was making her take a break for her mental health. She was planning on going right back to work the day after she had been so violently attacked.

As an extreme last resort, Nate had send an e-mail to PRS since they were more experienced and he knew that's where Kaylie had gathered all her inspiration from. Of course, he wasn't about to get his hopes up so he wasn't about to say a word to his sister.

A couple of minutes later, he snuck out and walked to a nearby Catholic church. There wasn't a doubt about it, that Kaylie wasn't going to link the illness and the recent activity to what had happened at the abandon church in Lycoming. He bowed at the foot of the cross, then sat in an empty pew; fingers laced together as he prayed for strength for him, and especially for his little sister.

Back at home, Kaylie opened her heavy eye lids when she heard the door knob start to slowly turn. She knew it was probably Nate, he'd been hovering over her lately. To avoid any communication, she pretended to sleep and listened as the door opened, footsteps enter and to the side of her bed. He lingered for a few moments, then head back out, slamming the door instead of shutting it lightly like he had. Kaylie lifted her head in confusion and irritability.

What the hell was his problem?

Slowly she sat up stretching. The muscles were sore with sleep, and the burn on her arm throbbed. Time, time, what time was it? Just as she turned to head to look at her alarm clock, she heard loud thuds on the stairs, like someone falling. Thinking it was Nate, Kaylie rushed into the hall way to check on him. Her eyes scanned the bottom of the stairs to find no one.

"Nate?" She called out, worried as she hurried down the steps. "Nate are you okay?" Her feet carried her into the living room, then into the kitchen.

That's when she made a horrible realization, she was alone in the house. Her heart picked up speed, how long had she been alone for? Automatically she gulped, pushing the panic back at bay, but the ending of every nerve had been like live wires. Suddenly, she was hyperaware of every single noise in the house.

"Leave me alone." She declared, but again, not receiving a single ounces of reply.

_Dead, dried up leaves crunched underneath his feet as he walked up to the motionless body sprawled on the ground. Her long dark brown hair all spread out under her head as her face was turned up toward the chill night sky; her eyes were hallow and emotionlessly black. The exposed skin on her wrist where the sleeve of the jacket hadn't reached had been slashed open, but she hadn't done it, he knew she was murdered. _

_Before the dream could carry on, Ryan Buell sat up; both grief and relief swimming within him as soon as he figured out it had only been a dream. His hand ran threw his hair tiredly and he turned and read the clock, '3:22'. A slight alarm touched him, had the dream meant something? That's when he realized that was the third time that week he had the exact same dream. The image of the lifeless's girl eyes seemed to haunt his mind ever during the thoughts of returning back to sleep. _

_Tiredly he reached over and flipped on the lamp on his bedside table, half expecting the light to reveal a hideous looking creatures under the darkness. No way in hell was he going to be able to get back to sleep. Too lost in his thoughts he found himself sitting at his kitchen table with a cup of coffee attempting to look over the next client's case; what if the dream had meant something? What is he had to find this girl? Or did it mean something else? Stand for something else symbolically? Hours could have been spent trying to figure out just what it was exactly meant to mean to him, but his cell phone began to ring; shattering his train of thought. _


End file.
